Stanford believes experience is really the best teacher

Mark Fainaru-Wada, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, August 15, 1999

STANFORD - As Tyrone Willingham and his coaching staff prepared to take their team into fall drills a year ago, they wanted - actually, needed - to find a way to season a group that, with few exceptions, had experienced none of the flavor of a college football game.

Stanford had only nine returning starters, and 54 players on the 92-man roster never had played a down of college football. Every skill position on offense, save for wide receiver Troy Walters' spot, was occupied by a newcomer. A rough season was projected, and a rough season ensued: A 3-8 record, with several lopsided losses along the way (63-28, 35-17, 34-9 . . .).

"It really took some time for us to get in sync," said offensive coordinator Bill Diedrick, who also was in his first year at Stanford. "Before we even had a team identity, team chemistry, we were probably halfway through the season."

This year is a different story, which is why Willingham and his staff felt like they already were several steps ahead of last year as fall practice began Saturday. With 19 returning starters, 44 returning letterman, a total of 286 games started by returning players, the Cardinal fully expect to spit on projections that their end result may not be much different than last year.

"Whether you go through good times or rough times, when you talk about the experience of playing, the value on that is unlimited," said Willingham, who is beginning his fifth season as head coach at Stanford.

The doubters - count the Pac-10 media among that group, for the Cardinal were picked to finish eighth in a poll of reporters who cover the conference - will say that the 10 returning defensive starters are the same 10 who gave up at least 30 points in the team's first seven games last year and at least 28 in all but the Big Game victory over offensively deficient Cal.

There is, though, a new defensive coordinator in Kent Baer, who replaced the fired Bill Harris and who has taken the playbook and essentially cut it in half.

"There was way too much," said Baer, who was elevated from linebackers coach.

Baer talked about how last year's defense was so young and so unproven that there clearly were players who didn't know how to handle certain situations - even reaching the point where some had "such scared looks on their faces, the color gone, they weren't sure who to look to."

Presumably there will be none of that this year. Still, even if the Cardinal are much improved, there is the issue of a brutal schedule that opens with a road game at Texas and a road game against highly ranked Arizona two weeks later.

The Cardinal got off to a stumbling start last season, upset at home by San Jose State, and things seemed to steamroll from there. Much of that might have been the lack of seasoning Willingham and others have alluded to, but it remains clear that this team will need to avoid a similar start. That won't be easy, with three Top 25 teams (Texas, Arizona, UCLA) among its first four opponents.

Then, after home games against San Jose State and Oregon State (with a bye in between), the Cardinal have a three-game road stretch against USC, Washington and Arizona State (also with a bye in there). The Cardinal finish with home games against Cal and Notre Dame.

Said veteran defensive linemen Willie Howard: "If we allow ourselves to slowly ease into things, we're going to find ourselves behind, looking to get a win."

Which is what happened last year. The Cardinal got a win the third game of the season, beating North Carolina, but then went on a six-game skid that defined the season. Again, though, players and coaches see a different team this year, a team that should understand the highs and lows of a season and flow with them rather than get consumed by one or the other.

"I think when you start losing, a lot of little problems you have start to skid out of control, people start to get irritable," said Todd Husak, who last year became only the third quarterback in school history to pass for more than 3,000 yards in a season. "This year we're more mature. I think we know how to overcome adversity. We've gotta try to stay on a more even keel."

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NOTES: FB Maxwell Stevenson, the starter last year before a neck injury forced him to miss the final five games of the season, is not back for his senior year because of the injury. . . . Walk-on RB John Eide decided not to return for a fifth season. The plucky little back who spurred last year's comeback victory over Washington State has opted for a high-paying job in the engineering world.&lt;

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